Yeah, I have no idea what the hell I was thinking there other than that line from Adam Sandler's Mr.Deeds. I am a little daffy as of late having done nothing but WORK since my return from Massachusetts on June 23RD. It seems my company's new theme is that if there is a black cloud in New England, FEMA should be standing by. As the Northeast has been getting one rain pattern after another this summer, the powers that be at my place of employment find great joy of plucking it's employees from their personal lives to sit idly by and wait for power outages that never show up. I know, why am I bitching? It's free money, right? But the fact is, it gets old sitting around waiting. I have already donated the first three weeks of my summer to the company, why not more. Oh well. I have to admit though, on a day to day basis, the work has been alot more interesting and fun now that my qualifications have gone up.
I have also recently taken some time to re-establish a relationship with my older brother. You see, I come from the typical modern family of steps and half siblings. All told I have two older and one younger step siblings and three younger half siblings, two of which I have never met. Yup, gotta love it. The New American family at it's finest. This blog post would be tremendously long if I explained it all, so I will save the story for another time. Instead I will get back to my older bro. You see, my step siblings & I have been together since 1978. I was 5, younger bro was 3, older bro was almost 7 and older sis was almost 9. We have all been through alot together over the 30 years. Ups & downs, hurt feelings, anger, joy, a full gamut of emotions. We always remained close, despite distances and periods of time that separated us. About 5 years ago, my older bro called me with news of a life change for him that I was not happy about at the time. It had reminded me too much of the bullshit we had seen growing up. I was angry and I turned my back on him. I tried to stay in touch with his now ex-wife to make sure everything was ok with her & my nephew. I did this for a couple of years, until she met a decent guy and remarried. I was and still am happy for her, and decided that instead of being the awkward ex-brother-in-law, I would back away and let things go as they should and since lived my life with no real family action other than my wife's family. Last year, however, I reconnected with my younger step brother whom I had lost touch with just because we were going in separate directions & he lived 2000 miles away. Through Myspace, cell phones & text messaging, I talk to the little bastard all the time now, and it's great. It is from this that he started prodding me to quit being such a dick and talk to my older brother and after thinking about things and hearing how great things were going for him, I decided to try & make amends. To my surprise, there seemed to be no hard feelings at all. He is remarried, happy and has a step daughter and a beautiful newborn daughter.
All is well and he is anxious to re-establish our relationship. This is great and I look forward to it. It does make me think of another relationship with a friend of mine who is like a brother that is also strained and cut off. I wrestle with the notion that life is too short and I need to let by gones be by gones, but I am such a stubborn son of a bitch, I can't help it sometimes, you know? Is it wise to let shit go, even if you don't agree with it? It's like I sit back hoping for the worst so I can throw out the biggest "I told you so" I can deliver. It makes me feel horrible when I think about it, but it's how I am. Oh well, it is something I need to work on and perhaps I will.
Until the next time....
"To err is human; to forgive, divine."- Alexander Pope
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